::leans back in his chair cracks open a beer(light beer) and gives a smirk::

HA!....RIGHT AFTER I STARTED THAT THREAD ABOUT "SOMETHING THAT IS TRUE BUT NO ONE ADMITS'..BAM!!THIS LIST POPS UP ABOUT MY MAN LYNCH BEING NUMERO UNO...! I TOLD YOU GUYS THIS........ ......LYNCH IS THE BEST ..I CANNNOT STRESS TO THESE SO-CALLED 'FILM BUFFS' ENOUGH THE GENIUS OF HIM..MAYBE SOME OF YOU GUYS NEED TO WATCH SOMETHING ON YOUR LEVEL..HAY!!!THE LAST SAMURIA IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER..GO SEE THAT THEN.....

as for the wachowshi's that just stupid..if ther're on that list what about mcG..??or danny devito..

EAT MY FUCKING SHORTS.

cdumbass.........ENVY...such a awfull sin.....

wait, CBrad is envious of your close-mindedness about the Wachowskis?

......RK...come on my brother ..don't you agree that the wachowski's should not be on that list.....????..and i know that IN NO WAY is this a DEFINITIVE list..to me its just funy that after i mentioned all of this high praise for lync in an earlier thread ..this "reputable" list appears w/lynch #1........BUT THERE WITHIN LIES A PARADOX> i'm bitch'n about how the phuck can the wachowskis be on that list but i'm in absolute agreement w/ the fact that lynch is number one..You see its ironic.......you got to reason these things out ..honeslty i can see the high praise for lynch.....but the wachowskis and not peter jackson WTF??.......

......RK...come on my brother ..don't you agree that the wachowski's should not be on that list.....????..and i know that IN NO WAY is this a DEFINITIVE list..to me its just funy that after i mentioned all of this high praise for lync in an earlier thread ..this "reputable" list appears w/lynch #1........BUT THERE WITHIN LIES A PARADOX> i'm bitch'n about how the phuck can the wachowskis be on that list but i'm in absolute agreement w/ the fact that lynch is number one..You see its ironic.......you got to reason these things out ..honeslty i can see the high praise for lynch.....but the wachowskis and not peter jackson WTF??.......

i find nothing ironic or paradoxical in ur incoherent babbling. ur praising urself b/c a month ago u started a thread saying how lynch was the greatest ever, and now these ppl come out w/ this list that has lynch at #1 and u feel u've accomplished sumthing here? um.... okie dokie.

I think the Coens are talented, but they are no more talented than a great deal of other filmmakers who don't get as much critical attention. The characters in Coen films are like cartoon characters. I never get emotionally invested in the characters, the way I get emotionally involved in PTA's characters. The Coen Brothers are certainly very clever, and they have a great visual sense, but it all comes down to this (to quote Magnolia) -- What Is This In The Service Of? Do I feel any emphathy for the characters in Raising Arizona or Barton Fink? No, they are just "types," viewed with smug detachment by their makers. What makes PTA great is that he creates characters who are three-dimensional. When Amber Waves loses her kid at the custody hearing in Boogie Nights, it was heart rending. The Coens have never created characters with this much depth.

I guess it comes down to sensibility -- I don't like their sensibility, which is hip, ironic, smug and emotionally detached.

why must we feel involved with every character in every movie? Don't you like to sit back and watch a good story unfold?

See, for me, when Amber loses her kid at the custody hearing, I was thinking "thank goodness". The last thing her kid needs is to be around a junkie headcase who lives on a porno movie set.

Logged

Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary: the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

See, for me, when Amber loses her kid at the custody hearing, I was thinking "thank goodness". The last thing her kid needs is to be around a junkie headcase who lives on a porno movie set.

very true, and I fully agree...it was set up in a way that would expect you to feel sorry for Amber. But when all is said and done, i feel pta did a great job of lettin' us not forget about the reality part of things. Is amber a bad person at heart?? no. but would I like to see her raisin' a kid. no way. it would be even worse than myself dealin' with a little jj....

why must we feel involved with every character in every movie? Don't you like to sit back and watch a good story unfold?

See, for me, when Amber loses her kid at the custody hearing, I was thinking "thank goodness". The last thing her kid needs is to be around a junkie headcase who lives on a porno movie set.

It's funny, Kubrick is one of my favorite filmmakers. He does present his characters with a cool, clinical sense of detachment, but he never loses sight of their humanity -- whether it be Alex in Clockwork Orange or Kidman's character in Eyes Wide Shut. At least they're flesh and blood characters, viewed from a lofty, Olympian distance. The Coens create cartoony characters that they often make fun of.

The scene in which Alex visits his parents after being in prison in Clockwork Orange had a great deal of poignancy, much more than I've ever seen in a Coen film. Or the scene in which Barry Lyndon's son died. I have yet to see anything like that in a Coen film. There is a difference between lofty, Olympian detachment, versus the smug, ironic detachment of college boys making fun of everything and not taking anything seriously. It's called immaturity vs. maturity.

I agree that Amber shouldn't be allowed to have custody of her kid, but the poignancy for me was the crushing realization of the wages of sin that hits all of the characters. I don't feel sorry for her because she deserves to keep her kid -- I feel sorry for her because she doesn't deserve to keep her kid, and I feel her sense of irreparable loss (thanks to Julianne Moore's brilliant acting).

As for watching a good story unfold, I don't think storytelling is the Coen Bros' strong point. Man Who Wasn't There was just a Dashiell Hammett pastiche, while Hudsucker Proxy was a pastiche of Capra films and screwball comedies. I think the Coens are the 90's equivalent of Peter Bogdanovich.

Ummmm I just noticed this, but Terrence Malick is number 5? That deserves a big "What the Fuck?" Ok, there's been lots of talk about directors on the list who may or may not be leading the way, and Malick may have been mentioned already, but seriously, their list is considerably flawed now. After 20 years, Malick makes the Thin Red Line, and nothing since. How the fuck is that leading any kind of way for film-making? I don't care how good TTRL was, it didn't influence cinema in any way to make Malick a big leader of directing, let alone the fifth biggest. I can't believe I missed that, this list is complete trash now. Might be a little rejective of the rest of the qualities of their list, but honestly, that's a big fucking mistake.

As for watching a good story unfold, I don't think storytelling is the Coen Bros' strong point. Man Who Wasn't There was just a Dashiell Hammett pastiche, while Hudsucker Proxy was a pastiche of Capra films and screwball comedies. I think the Coens are the 90's equivalent of Peter Bogdanovich.

You could say the same for Kill Bill, doesn't mean Tarantino isn't deserving of the praise he gets as a filmmaker. It's the fact that they (Coens and Tarantino alike) can take the style and make it their own and mock it while at the same time show their love for it that makes them great filmmakers. Even PTA once said movies are like songs, they have the same similar structure of verse chorus verse, all you can do is add on to it. These guys are paying tribute to old styles, and doing it goddamn well.

Lynch is more of a cinematographer than a filmmaker. His films have very little substance.

..i know where your going with this but i think that straight story and elephant man have substance.....

I would say that The Straight Story is more Mary Sweeney's film than Lynch's. She put the project together, co-wrote it an also did the editing. She had to convince Lynch to even do the film.

.this in a way proves the gennius of lynch.....you stated that he was "pushed" into doing this film..which one would assume that once your pushed into somethignt that your heart is not into, the film as a result of your lack of heart would suffer..bu tnnot w/lynch-he made this(straight story) a modest masterpiece.....{spoileralso, at the end he could have screwed it up and cheesed it out ..bu the choose a unnncoventional way..and it paid off well}......

and what ever liitle involment he had he was still the director of this film so had his imput in it..

why must we feel involved with every character in every movie? Don't you like to sit back and watch a good story unfold?

See, for me, when Amber loses her kid at the custody hearing, I was thinking "thank goodness". The last thing her kid needs is to be around a junkie headcase who lives on a porno movie set.

Yes, but... the father didn't seem much better, really. Seemed to me he was using the kid to "get back" at Amber somehow, like he had this big chip on his shoulder. I think PTA set this up in a similar way he set upt he Bill Macy suicide thing (the way he discusses it on the soundtrack, how horrified he was when the audience actually cheered him murdering his wife): He's absolutely not into allowing the audience to feel triumphant at anyone's pain, or divvying up the world into black and white, "he's 'right' so we're on his side, she's 'wrong' so we're not for her." Not in the least; if I felt that's what he was trying to do with his stories and characters, I'm sure I'd have very little fondness for him as a filmmaker.

I really like soixante's way of putting it. Amber is, above and beyond being a "junkie headcase who lives on a porno movie set," a human being in a lot of pain, someone PTA clearly feels for and means for us to, even if some of us might not. In my opinion, that's what PTA was really trying to get at. Of course she wasn't going to get custody of her kid- but it's not some sort of moral superiority at work, some sort of, "Yeah! Right on!" kind of thing. It's genuinely tragic, and I really believe we're supposed to feel for her.

In fact, I've been extremely surprised to read here how some people seem to dislike or look down on Rollergirl and Amber Waves. That interpretation seems so far-fetched to me; it honestly never would have crossed my mind. To me, they're absolutely equal in complexity and final sympathy to the rest of the characters.

Logged

""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

complexity yes, sympathy, I dunno -- but I group Dirk and well, pretty much all the rest of them. Except for some reason Buck. I genuinely feel Buck got shafted way worse than he put himself out to be. Maybe that's why PTA gave him the bag of money...

I mean, as to Rollergirl, he even said himself on the commentary about those "I dunno" girls.

Also, I think you're reading way too much into the husband character in that scene. All the info presented was that he didn't want her to have custody (or much contact at all) with the kid, with very VERY valid reasons. Keep in mind we see her phoning and harassing him in the middle of the night while she snorts a rail. I mean, yes it was painful to watch Amber break down and cry (probably a testament to JM's great acting), but I didn't feel like she was unfairly treated. I feel like she was sleeping in a very bad bed she made for herself. Just like every character in the last half of the movie.

Logged

Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary: the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.